Tutorials, Guides, Tips, and Tricks from Everyday Experiences

The following instructions are written for the beginner gEDA users who wish to change the default black background color to white (or whichever color of their choosing). This is documented on the gEDA Wiki, but I believe that the instructions are either obsolete, not clear enough, or both. I have used and tested the following instructions using gEDA Version 1.4.0.20080127 within Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex).

Start by opening the file called “system-gschemrc” within the /etc/gEDA directory. You can do this by typing the following into the terminal:

sudo gedit /etc/gEDA/system-gschemrc

Near the top of the document, you will see a block of code that controls the color scheme of the program. Uncomment the line ending in “; light background” and comment out the line ending in “; dark background”. The finished changes should look like the following:

;
; Start of color section
;
; Load up a color scheme has a light (almost white) background
; Comment out the first line and comment in the second line for a
; dark (black) background. The dark background is the original look.
;
;(load (build-path geda-rc-path "gschem-darkbg")) ; dark background
(load (build-path geda-rc-path "gschem-lightbg")) ; light background

Now that you have chosen to use the light background scheme, you’ll need to edit the “gschem-lightbg” file to your liking. Here, we will change the color of the background from a light grey, to a white. Begin by typing the following into the terminal:

That’s it! Re-open gEDA and enjoy the new background color! As the documentation suggests, “if you want more control over the colors, please edit “/etc/gEDA/gschem-darkbg” or “/etc/gEDA/gschem-lightbg” or create your own file and load it in the system-gschemrc file.”

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